Oyster farmers in the Warkworth area, north of Auckland, fear their businesses won't survive the year. Photo: Supplied
Oyster farmers north of Auckland say they need financial support and rates relief while harvesting is on hold due to pollution, or some businesses will close.
Farmers in the Warkworth area are concerned Watercare still does not have an urgent solution to stop swimming-pool amounts of sewage being dumped into the water their livelihoods depend on.
About 50 people from the oyster farming community met with Watercare on Monday, asking for an urgent solution to the discharges and financial relief in a meeting also attended by local MPs and councillor Greg Sayers.
More rain on Monday led to another sewage overflow and Matakana Oysters owner Tom Walters said further delays would be crippling - each spill results in a 28-day ban on harvesting.
"I'm really pissed off about it today. Today we're facing it again and we won't survive, simple as that," he said.
Watercare said a new pump station will be working from September at the earliest, stopping wet-weather sewage overflows into the Mahurangi River, which flows to the harbour.
"It's too late for me, it's too late for most of these guys. Our season generally goes from April till the end of December, three months will be left of the season then," Walters said.
Maurangi Oysters owner and operator Jim Aitken said they could not wait until September for sewage discharges to end.
"That gives us less than three months to sell a year's worth of oysters, which is just not physically possible. There's no way, even with the great support of the community we couldn't possibly sell enough oysters to cover this year's bills, so it's not a great sign."
He said his and other farmers faced laying off staff.
"With no income, there's no way we can pay salaries. We would normally have four or five people, including myself this time of year, employed. We're down to one young guy and I don't want to let him go, but I'm not sure what we can do," Aitken said.
"I know a few others are struggling too. How do we even pay our bills? How do we even pay our rates that are supposed to prevent these things from happening? It's a struggle."
He said many of the oyster farmers, from 10 companies, were suffering from stress.
"It's a question that's been keeping me up at night, for sure, how long we can survive and I can I don't have an answer yet."
Watercare's incoming chief executive Jamie Sinclair and board chair Geoff Hunt, and other senior leaders, met with the oyster farmers on Monday.
A spokesperson for the agency said the meeting was held "to listen to their concerns and talk through in detail the plans we have in place to significantly reduce overflows to the Mahurangi River that occur in wet weather".
"It was a constructive session and we will be providing regular updates as our programme progresses," they said.
Aitken said farmers have asked for an urgent solution, rates relief and financial support.
"We put our hearts on our sleeves and there were a few tears in a lot of people's eyes trying to trying to make sure the people at Watercare felt and cared about how we are struggling," he said.
"The oysters are actually doing their job as filter feeders, so they are cleaning up Watercare's mess but we can't do this for free and we cannot afford to get anyone sick."
The farmers had paid rates and for consents to run their businesses that they could now not operate.
"We've paid a lot of money in the last couple of years on our consents and fees to do this, to do this job and of course those consents are no longer valid if we can't use them... to be able to grow oysters.
"We're hoping for some sort of relief, some sort of support, so we don't have to let go of people."
The pressure on Mahurangi's wastewater network is a long-running issue and Auckland Council recently warned developers that no wastewater connections could be made to properties south of the river until upgrades are completed later this year.
Watercare said its pipes in Elizabeth St, Warkworth, are nearing capacity and when it rains stormwater can enter the wastewater network and cause it to overflow into the river the street borders.
It also said some household downpipes were incorrectly connected to the gully trap, instead of the wastewater network.
The agency said it would reduce sewage overflows by installing a larger pipe at Elizabeth St, starting in August and this would be complete by the end of the year.
Longer term, Watercare said it is designing a large pipeline that will carry wastewater from new developments north of the river in Warkworth, through the township to the new pump station at Lucy Moore Memorial Reserve, which would increase the network's capacity and be complete in 2028.
"This new pipeline is part of an investment of more than $450m to completely transform wastewater services for Warkworth and Snells Beach communities," a spokesperson said.
"The programme includes building a new pump station, a new treatment plant at Snells Beach, a transfer pipeline to connect them, and an ocean outfall."
"The ocean outfall, transfer pipeline and pump station are already completed. The new treatment plant is on track to be finished and in service later this year, ending the discharge of treated wastewater to the Mahurangi River."
Watercare chief strategy and planning officer Priyan Perera said they were focused on doing everything they could to deliver wastewater upgrades to prevent the pollution.
"We're doing everything we can to support them, we heard them yesterday and we've been listening for a long time now. Watercare is absolutely motivated to do what we can to support, to help and deliver the infrastructure as quickly as we can so that their businesses can thrive."
Perera said the agency was working to resolve the spills with a pipe upgrade by September and longer term fix by 2028.
He said they would go back to farmers to explore ways Watercare could support them.
"Typically as a public utility we don't pay compensation but what we have commited to is looking at other ways that we can work with the oyster growers and farmers to support them between now and when the short term and the long term solutions are delivered."
Perera said Watercare had looked at trucking waste away.
"We've looked hard at how we might be able to store and tanker and move wastewater away but unfortunately there is nothing that's feasible, nothing that will work effectively."
